Author, talking in Emmaus, talks about who murdered Betsey at Penn State

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

In 'Murder in the Stacks,' David DeKok details the story of Penn State student Betsy Aardsma, killed in Pattee Library on campus Nov. 29, 1969.

In 'Murder in the Stacks,' David DeKok details the story of Penn State student Betsy Aardsma, killed in Pattee Library on campus Nov. 29, 1969. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)

Margie PetersonSpecial to The Morning Call

No one was ever charged in the murder. David DeKok believes he knows who did it.

Forty-five years ago a Penn State graduate student named Betsy Aardsma entered the labyrinth-like basement stacks at the university's Pattee Library the day after Thanksgiving and was stabbed to death.

No one was ever charged in the murder. David DeKok believes he knows who did it.

DeKok makes his case in "Murder in the Stacks: Penn State, Betsy Aardsma and the Killer Who Got Away," a meticulously researched book released in 2014.

DeKok will speak about the case, answer questions and sign books at the Emmaus Public Library at 7 p.m. April 15.

Dolly Russell, the Emmaus librarian who invited DeKok, was working at Pattee Library the day of the murder.

"I was young, single, had long brown hair like the victim's, and because the murder went unsolved, I had nightmares about it for a long time," Russell says. "Even after I left State College a few years later, I'd occasionally ask my mother, who lived in Centre County, if the killer was ever caught. It was with enormous relief that I discovered David DeKok's book, which puts to rest something that bothered me for decades."

DeKok wrote a series on the case in December 2008 while working as an investigative reporter for the Harrisburg Patriot. But he felt connected to Aardsma since his youth.

He was born and raised in Aardsma's hometown of Holland, Mich., a Dutch-American enclave, and DeKok and Aardsma shared a Dutch heritage. DeKok was 16 when Aardsma was murdered on Nov. 29, 1969, and says he clearly remembers seeing a story about it in the Holland Sentinel newspaper.

DeKok's familiarity with the culture and community helped in his research. He talked with many of Aardsma's friends about her life at the time. But when his newspaper series was published, DeKok had more questions than answers about the murder.

Over the years, theories emerged about possible connections the Aardsma murder might have had to other sensational crimes, including the case of serial killer Ted Bundy.

Then in 2010, DeKok got a tip from one of Aardsma's friends that state police believed they knew who the killer was. DeKok learned it was a man named Richard C. Haefner, who Aardsma had befriended briefly soon after arriving on campus.

Haefner was a geology graduate student from Lancaster and he and Aardsma lived in the same dorm. Aardsma saw him a few times socially before they had a falling out. DeKok says she had told members of her family that he was a creep and she was afraid of him.

DeKok says Haefner matched the physical description of the man seen running out of the library when Aardsma collapsed. Haefner also was known to carry a small homemade knife. He was investigated several times for molesting boys.

Police never arrested Haefner, who died in 2002, for Aardsma's murder. DeKok says a tainted crime scene hindered the collection of evidence.

Trooper Thomas M. Stock, the current investigating officer for the Aardsma case, Pennsylvania State Police at Rockview, said this week the case is still open.

"We believe that Richard Haefner may have had information about this case/crime," he said. "Unfortunately I cannot speak about suspects in an active investigation. As information comes in about the case all possible leads are followed up on."

DeKok isn't the first to name Haefner as a suspect. Author Derek Sherwood did so in his 2011 book "Who Killed Betsy?: Uncovering Penn State University's Most Notorious Unsolved Crime."

But DeKok says during his three years of researching and writing the book it became important to him that Aarsdma be seen as more than a victim in a sensational case.

"I really wanted to kind of in a literary sense bring Betsy back from the dead," he says. "People really, they really liked her. Her teachers adored her."

"As one of my friends who lived next to her put it, she was beautiful, intelligent and kind," DeKok says. "She became kind of the anonymous murder victim …I wanted to make her almost a living character in this story so people remember her for being more than just someone who was stabbed in the heart."